MHS principal has good feeling about aspects of accreditation visit

MIDDLEBORO — At last Thursday's School Committee meeting, Middleboro High School Principal Paul Branagan spoke about the recent week-long on-site assessment by NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges) as their visiting team observed the school, ultimately to recommend or deny accreditation renewal.

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By MATTHEW FERREIRA

southcoasttoday.com

By MATTHEW FERREIRA

Posted Apr. 18, 2013 at 10:56 AM

By MATTHEW FERREIRA

Posted Apr. 18, 2013 at 10:56 AM

» Social News

MIDDLEBORO — At last Thursday's School Committee meeting, Middleboro High School Principal Paul Branagan spoke about the recent week-long on-site assessment by NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges) as their visiting team observed the school, ultimately to recommend or deny accreditation renewal.

"The past week has been a pretty amazing week for the high school," said Mr. Branagan. "Some immediate feedback we have received from them is that they've never seen a more critical lens for a self-study. When I say critical I don't mean negative but very real and honest."

The NEASC team consisted of 16 educators from across New England who visited each classroom in the high school at least twice by their second day of observation on Tuesday. Team members spent time speaking with randomly selected students and conducted focus groups throughout the week.

Though the committee has not completed its work, Mr. Branagan told School Committee members he believes he has some insight into NEASC team members' thoughts based on conversations with them.

"One thing they repeated over and over again was our students ... the culture of our school, the pride in the high school, the fact students really do love being in that building and the affection they have for their teachers," Mr. Branagan said.

Another bit of feedback the high school principal received from team members was that there seemed to be a an "urgency in terms of focusing on our curriculum, our instruction and assessment." The final report from NEASC on their findings will be sent back to the superintendent of schools and Mr. Branagan in the fall at which time it will be made public.

"I think (this) will be a real testament of the things we're doing really well but also a clear direction for where we need to be going," Mr. Branagan said.

Aside from the NEASC visit, Mr. Branagan also reported that the Special Olympics of Massachusetts has asked Middleboro High School to be a major part of their ceremonies this June.

"Last year we had the good fortune to go with our drum line and our cheerleaders got to perform at the opening games," Mr. Branagan said. "This year they've asked us to come back and actually have Middleboro run pretty much all of their Olympic Village."

At the middle school level, Nichols Middle School Principal Martin Geoghegan and Vice Principal Timothy McLaughlin's report to the committee reflected drastic improvements in behavioral problems at the school compared to previous years.

"When Mr. McLaughlin and I both looked at our discipline numbers before we were hired it was something that stood out to us and was kind of staggering and certainly was something we said we're going to have to work on and deal with," Mr. Geoghegan said. "At the end of the summer we went over the numbers from last year and it was really stunning," said Mr. McLaughlin. "We wanted to look further back to see if it was maybe a problem just in the last year and the numbers were really consistent at Nichols over the last five years".

The administrators described a process that started before the school year began.

"We had a beginning of the year meeting where we simply went down what was the expectation and as a lot of staff told us this was not something our kids were used to hearing at the school—what was acceptable, what was not acceptable, what would we talk about depending on the circumstances and how they handled themselves," Mr. McLaughlin said. "We actually gave them five 'non-negotiables' and those were things that, simply put, if they ended up in the office for that issue there would be parent-involvement, there would be suspension from school and it'd be taken very seriously. Those five things were kind of no-brainers—weapons, drugs, swearing, fighting, and bus-issues "¦. Beyond that, we'll talk about it, and I think that went along with the kids understanding 'this is what's not going to fly this year'."

Other factors put into place to help curb discipline problems at the middle school involved some procedural redesign of how staff view and handle issues with students.

"We had a two-pronged message for (staff) and one was that we would support them — the bottom line is they would always feel supported when there was a student issue. Also we needed to start looking at why kids were acting up in class and getting sent to the office," Mr. McLaughlin said. "Were there moments where we could challenge them in different ways? ... We also asked staff that when they did send a child to the office and wrote them up that they'd follow up with a parent phone call later that day."

As of April 4 of this year, the middle school has had 174 write-ups as opposed to 1,348 at this time last year.

"We also eliminated our in-school suspension program," said Mr. McLaughlin. "Mr. Geoghegan and I felt strongly in the previous schools we worked in that we'd never seen an in-school suspension program run to the effectiveness that it's intended and often it becomes a holding pen, for lack of a better term, and it becomes a non-productive time away for a student to spend their time."

In order to keep this trend in effect the administrators consistently review new data on discipline at the school and keep staff updated with statistics and ideas to minimize conflict in class.

In other news for the district, Thursday's meeting would be the last for longtime School Committee member Michael Pilla Jr. who is retiring from his seat. Also, the school committee took a vote to renewing the district's active school choice status but will be limited to five slots in grade 12 only.